Dear Gentle Reader, I said that I hoped I would be able to publish at more length today. I appear to be able to, so I shall endeavour to say something useful.

ON THE DEPLORABLE STATE OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

When I write, "the deplorable state of Catholic theology," I am not meaning the words in a literal sense. That is to say, I am not saying that Catholic theology, considered in itself, is deplorable. What is deplorable, and what I consequently deplore, is the substitution for Catholic theology that has replaced Catholic theology in the minds of many who, apparently with no consciousness of irony, describes themselves as Catholic. Now there are certain names familiar to everyone in Catholic intellectual circles the very sound of which bring sorrow to the heart and tears to the eyes. One such is Hans Küng. Now I have not read anything by Hans Küng, except two dispiriting articles, one in the current edition of The Tablet, wherein he argued in favour of the abolition of the celibacy law, and for women priests; and another published in The Guardian on the 27th of October last year. He also, incidentally, mentioned someone called the Roman Pope, as if there were a Venetian Pope, a Glaswegian Pope, and a Parisian Pope, and they all had to be distinguished from each other. It is not my purpose here to write a defence of the ecclesiastical law requiring sacertodal celibacy, though I could do so without much difficulty; but I will make a remark concerning the incessantly proposed and equally (and rightly) incessantly rejected ordination of women: it is not that the thing is wrong, it is that it is impossible. It is metaphysically impossible. It is as impossible to make a woman into a priest as it is to make a teapot into a flying carpet. Some people might object to the phrase "make a woman into a priest" as if when a woman were, per impossibile, made into a priest, she would cease to a woman. It will be easier to discuss this issue if we think in terms of reality, with what is actually possible in this world that God made. When a man is ordained a priest, it is not literally true that he ceases to be a man. But in a very real sense he does cease to be a man. He ceases to be an ordinary man, and he cannot be changed back again into an ordinary man: for the Sacrament of Order, like that of Baptism and that of Confirmation, plants an indelible character upon the soul. Great heavens above, man, this is basic, basic theology! And yet people who are not only not theological experts but know not even basic, basic theology - I do not mean people like Hans Küng, but people who read The Tablet - think that they can dictate to the Church of God what she can and cannot do! Not even what she ought or ought not to do, but what she is able and is not able to do.
With someone like Hans Küng, on the other hand, who for some reason teaches theology at the University of Tübingen, though his faculties for teaching theology were withdrawn by the Vatican in 1979 after he wrote a book denying the revealed dogma of papal infallibility, which alone makes him a heretic: with someone like this, it is much harder to understand him. How can he, a priest, have so little understanding of the basics of Catholic theology? And why does he, who has so little understanding of the basics of Catholic theology, (a) write books against Catholic theology, (b) call those books against Catholic theology books of Catholic theology, and (c) teach theology at the University of Tübingen?
In itself this would not be a problem if people merely laughed at him. But they don't: they take this moron so seriously that it nearly destroys my faith in humanity.

"Since the Second Vatican Council in the 60s, many episcopal conferences, pastors and believers have been calling for the abolition of the medieval prohibition of marriage for priests, a prohibition which, in the last few decades, has deprived almost half of our parishes of their own pastor. Time and again, the reformers have run into Ratzinger's stubborn, uncomprehending intransigence. And now these Catholic priests are expected to tolerate married, convert priests alongside themselves. When they want themselves to marry, should they first turn Anglican, and then return to the church?"

Does Father Küng not already know that there are married Anglican priests? Does he think that exceptions prove rules? Oh, and "medieval". The nincompoops love that word: "medieval". Anything more than about a hundred years old, and which they don't like because it's old, they call "medieval", and poof! There is an end of the argument. Married convert priests already exist. And in answer to his question, no, they should not, and only a fool would suggest such a thing.

But I seem to have had the ill fortune to run into Father Küng's stubborn, uncomprehending intransigence.